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Kris Davis and Craig Taborn Live at The Wexner Center For The Arts

By Mark Corroto

Kris Davis and Craig Taborn The Wexner Center For The Arts Columbus, OH October 7, 2016 The two-week, 12 city tour was billed as Kris Davis and Craig Taborn piano duos. It might have been better advertised as a solo act, let's call it 'Davborn' or maybe 'Krisaig.' This is because Friday night, the pianists' two hearts beat as one, as did their sound. Davis has recently released her new ...

Kris Davis: Duopoly

By Mark Corroto

Query: when does improvised music appear more arranged than written compositions? The question is not a zen koan, it is the notion put forth by the sixteen duets performed by pianist Kris Davis and her eight collaborating partners. Davis, who can no longer be labeled a “rising star" of jazz and improvised piano, is a fully formed mature performer. Her dozen or so discs as leader and multiple collaborations with Michael Formanek, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey, Jon Irabagon, and Eric ...

Kris Davis Infrasound: Save Your Breath

By Glenn Astarita

Nascent New York-based pianist, composer Kris Davis presents a musical journey that may be akin to navigating through a dense forest via snaking trails, rolling hills and dusky caves. With a first-class supporting cast , the pianist's comprehensive works emphasize her luminous imaginative powers. Several movements are fashioned with cascading horns passages, supple deviations and variable cadences amid the conventional dips and spikes as the band slips, slides and locks into alternating rhythmic parameters. Davis' compositional style incorporates ...

Kris Davis: Massive Threads

By Mark Corroto

The first five minutes of “Ten Exorcists," the opening track of Massive Threads by pianist Kris Davis, consists of minimalist repetitive percussive playing of her prepared piano. The Steve Reich-like repetition mimics percussive tape-loops that cease, but the momentum endures and lays the foundation for her solo. This solo outing benefits from Davis' classically trained ear, the follow-up to her first solo attempt Aeriol Piano (Clean Feed, 2011). Her background has earned her praise, writing for jazz ensembles ...

Kris Davis: Capricorn Climber

By Glenn Astarita

Relocating from her native Canada to New York City, pianist Kris Davis has infused her imposing talents into New York City's unconventional, downtown-like scene. She once again aligns her compositional and improvisation expertise with like-minded artists, who frequently transition the jazz idiom into a boundless vista. Hence, the album projects a topsy-turvy and rather oscillating aura, featuring the musicians' use of counterpoint, space, and emphatic exchanges. They mix it up, while also stretching themes to the hilt amid several introspective ...

Kris Davis: Good Citizen

By Mark F. Turner

It's just a coincidence that pianist Kris Davis has had three stunning trio recordings released in 2010. There are the two on Clean Feed Records--Paradoxial Frog, a brilliant joint collaboration with drummer Tyshawn Sorey and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock; and Three by the SKM trio, with Davis joined by saxophonist Stephen Gauci and bassist Michael Bisio. But it's no coincidence that Davis' percussive style and edgy invention is also present in Good Citizens, another clear visage of her abilities as a ...

Kris Davis / Ingrid Laubrock / Tyshawn Sorey: Paradoxical Frog

By Chris May

There's so much music bursting out of saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, and her cultural reference points are so diverse, that you never quite know, as you take a disc out of the sleeve for the first time, what she's going to be up to--aside from going further. The intriguing Paradoxical Frog contains more surprises. Among the first fruits of Laubrock's more or less full-time relocation from London to Brooklyn, the album is a trio set made with pianist Kris ...

Kris Davis: Rye Eclipse & Outright!

By Robert Iannapollo

Kris Davis Rye Eclipse Fresh Sound New Talent 2008 Jon Irabagon Jon Irabagon's Outright! Innova Recordings 2008

Canadian born, Brooklyn-based pianist Kris Davis made inroads into the public consciousness with a pair of albums on Fresh Sound-New Talent with her quartet of saxophonist Tony Malaby, bassist Eivind Opsvik and drummer Jeff ...

Kris Davis: Rye Eclipse

By Troy Collins

On Rye Eclipse, pianist Kris Davis' quartet ventures deeper into the formidable abstractions documented on their previous release, The Slightest Shift (Fresh Sound, 2007). Featuring her husband, drummer Jeff Davis, omnipresent bassist Eivind Opsvik and Downtown saxophone phenomenon Tony Malaby, this is the Brooklyn-based pianist's second recording with her reliable quartet and the third for the esteemed indie label Fresh Sound New Talent.

Conservatory trained in her native Canada, the current New York City resident has quickly established ...

Kris Davis: The Slightest Shift

By Brian P. Lonergan

The adjective that comes to mind again and again when listening to this quartet recording by pianist and composer Kris Davis is “refreshing. Much of The Slightest Shift sounds close to free improvisation, but there is also a recurring sense that one is listening to a modern chamber music ensemble. And the initial impression of at times decentralized free play belies a group working in close coordination within definite compositional frameworks. Along with Davis, Tony Malaby (tenor saxophone), Eivind Opsvik ...

Kris Davis: The Slightest Shift

By Troy Collins

The Slightest Shift is young Canadian-born pianist Kris Davis' second release as a leader, following her acclaimed 2004 debut, Lifespan. Joined by her husband, drummer Jeff Davis, the ever reliable bassist Eivind Opsvik and the ubiquitous saxophonist Tony Malaby, this recent New York resident reconvenes her sympathetic working ensemble to investigate a new set of abstract post-bop compositions.

Davis' contrapuntal, open-ended writing avoids routine devices like conventional chord changes and head-solo-head arrangements with a neo-classical sensibility. Favoring gnarly, ...

Kris Davis: The Slightest Shift

By Mark F. Turner

If Canadian pianist Kris Davis' auspicious debut, Life Span (FSNT, 2004), was an indication of her progressive tendencies, then The Slightest Shift reinforces those forward-thinking ideas in resounding and surprising ways. Whereas her debut was colored with expansive lyricism and melodic tapestries, the new recording is a bolder statement of Davis' compositional prowess, and the music now involves more abstract, condensed and freer modes. With the help of some seriously open-minded musicians--including drummer Jeff Davis, bassist Eivind ...